Cospas-Sarsat is a satellite system designed to provide distress alert and location data to assist search and rescue (SAR) operations, using spacecraft and ground facilities to detect and locate the signals of distress beacons operating on 406 Megahertz (MHz), 121.5 MHz or 243 MHz. An important feature of 406 MHz emergency beacons is the addition of a digitally encoded message, which provides such information as the country of beacon registration and the identification of the vessel or aircraft in distress, and optionally, position data from onboard navigation equipment. An auxiliary transmitter (121.5 MHz or 243 MHz) is usually included in the 406 MHz beacon to enable suitably equipped SAR forces to home on the distress beacon. To ensure that 406 MHz beacons are compatible with the Cospas-Sarsat System, detailed specifications and type approval testing standards have been adopted. Periodic testing of the Cospas-Sarsat beacons is required to ensure functionality of the beacons and to indicate whether these devices still meet the requirement standards of Cospas-Sarsat. Consequently, it would be desirable, and it is an object of the present invention to provide, a portable handheld device for testing of such beacons, and in particular a plug-in card or module or the like (collectively alternatively referred to herein as a module) for use with a handheld computing device (HCD) such as a personal digital assistant (PDA) for such testing.
As noted by Mills et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 6,353,870 which issued Mar. 5, 2002, a problem in the prior art, and one which is purportedly addressed by Mills et al., is the limited capabilities for expansion or customization, a PDA being provided with at most one or two slots for removable expansion cards for input/output (I/O), I/O adapters, memories and memory adapters including expansion cards having DRAM, SRAM, ROM, Flash technologies. It is noted that I/O expansion cards also have included dedicated peripherals, networking, modems, wireless communications, serial I/O, and bar-code and other scanners.
Also in the prior art of which applicant is aware, U.S. Pat. No. 5,671,374 which issued Sep. 23, 1997 to Postman et al. discloses the use of a PDA or similar host equipped with PC card interfaces for I/O devices including portable laser scanners, magnetic stripe and ink readers, key boards and key pads, OCR devices, and track balls. Postman et al. introduce the abstract to their specification by stating that a variety of PC card interfaces interface from many different types of input devices to PDAs or palm-top computers through PCMCIA slots so that the PDAs receive data from barcode scanning engines, and so as to decode the data and pass the decoded data to the PDA via PCMCIA pin bus. Applicant is also aware of U.S. Pat. No. 6,842,652 which issued Jan. 11, 2005, to Yeung which discloses a camera or image capture device insertable into an expansion slot of a handheld PC or PDA.
Also in the prior art, applicant is aware of U.S. Pat. No. 5,519,577 which issued May 21, 1996 to Dudas et al. wherein embodiments are taught for a PC card-based radio for applications based in a portable host so that, as taught by Dudas et al., when used with a local area network installed within a facility, a scanner or other device may communicate directly with a computer that manages inventory in the facility, the example given of using a spread spectrum radio for use in a portable barcode scanner.
What is neither taught nor suggested, and what it is one object of the present invention to provide, is the mounting of a radio frequency receiver into an insertable housing shaped to conform with the form factor for a plug-in peripheral card or module for use with a HCD such as a PDA, wherein the receiver section is left protruding from the HCD for two-way radio communication from an exposed end of the plug-in card or module. The opposite plug-in end of the card or module is releasably mounted in co-operating communication with the processor within the HCD.
Applicant is also aware of U.S. Pat. No. 6,289,464 which issued Sep. 11, 2001 to Wecker et al. as describing a system and method for receiving wireless information on a portable computing device which includes powering the wireless receiver of the device only from a battery of the portable computing device. The device receives wireless information and stores the wireless information in the memory of the wireless receiver. It is neither taught nor suggested, and is an object of the present invention to also provide, without intending to be limiting, a radio frequency antenna, RF radio and interface controller mounted within the housing of the plug-in card or module so as to be substantially enclosed within the body of the wherein the processing of the information received remotely from a beacon through the beacon tester plug-in module according to the present invention, is tested and specified parameters decoded so as to be graphically displayed on the display of the HCD.